Missouri · Nonprofit
METROPOLITAN LUTHERAN MINISTRY
METROPOLITAN LUTHERAN MINISTRY (Missouri) receives grants from 56 organizations whose IRS filings report $11,172,136 to it, the largest being PARTNERS PEOPLE IN PROGRESS INC ($3,394,150). 31 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2024
- $9.8M
- Funders on record
- 56
- Grants received
- $11M
- Net assets
- $8.3M
What Metropolitan Lutheran Ministry does
Mission
With dignity and respect, Metropolitan Lutheran Ministry helps families and individuals break the cycle of poverty, supporting them in achieving housing and personal stability, food security, and self-sufficiency.
As stated on its FY2024 Form 990.
Programs
Case management: Metropolitan Lutheran Ministry (mlm) provides a continuum of care for clients that meets their needs for food, diapers, hygiene items, birth certificates, identification and rent/utility assistance to stabilize the family. In addition to this short-term assistance, mlm provides intensive, year-long case management which includes housing assistance, financial literacy, household skills and employment support. To ensure that permanent and lasting solutions are in place for mlm clients, mlm continues to follow up with families for five years. Programming is targeted to at-risk and homeless households.
$2,061,269 spentof which $1,653,526 as grants26% of program spendingClient services: Metropolitan Lutheran Ministry provides shelf-stable food, fresh produce, hygiene items, diapers, sack lunches, senior commodities, school supplies, financial assistance for birth certificates, identification, rent and utilities to families and individuals in urgent need of assistance from three agency locations. Programming is targeted to low-income, impoverished, at-risk and homeless households.
$4,455,020 spentof which $3,799,271 as grants57% of program spendingCommunity outreach: over time, Metropolitan Lutheran Ministry (mlm) has developed a portfolio of community outreach programs designed for the general benefit of the communities they operate in. The minor home repair program provides assistance to low income, elderly and disabled homeowners who are in need of repairs to improve the safety and security of their homes, allowing them to remain in their homes.mlm also hosts a christmas store in kansas city alongside a volunteer corps of 500 people to provide approximately 900 families with food vouchers and a self-shop store with gifts for every member of the family.additionally, mlm hosts two unlimited hot breakfasts each saturday in kansas city, kansas and kansas city, missouri. Finally, the mlm orchard and community gardens exist to improve community health by providing better food for people in the adjacent neighborhoods of boston heights and mount hope. Mlm manages an 80 tree orchard that produces a wide variety of fruit, including apples, peaches, apricots, cherries, pears and plums. Mlm also offers and maintains community garden beds for residents of the neighborhoods where fresh produce of their choice is grown. The orchard and…
$1,323,905 spentof which $867,239 as grants$31,113 earned by the program17% of program spending
The 3 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $7,840,194.
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2017, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2017, 50 means half. The number beside each label in the key is where it ended.
Balance sheet
Total assets and total liabilities at each year end, in dollars. The largest one-year move in total assets was 2020 to 2021, from $4.2M to $5.6M (+35%).
How it's funded, over time
Each bar is one year's revenue split into where it came from, and every bar is the same height — these are shares, not amounts, so a year that raised twice as much looks the same size. Hover a bar for the split.
Government-grant reliance: 2017 15% · 2018 14% · 2019 10% · 2020 24% · 2021 55% · 2022 57% · 2023 51% · 2024 56%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 0 of the last 8 reported years ran a deficit.
reserve
Leadership and staff
The officers, directors, trustees and key employees listed on each return. Joined and no longer listed compare each filing with the year before, matching people by surname and first initial; a year after a gap, or a roster under three people, has no comparison.
Chief executive
Scott Cooper
Executive director
Board chair
Erik Olson
Chair
As listed on its FY2024 Form 990.
The chief executive listed changed between the FY2018 and FY2019 filings.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 17 funders to 23 funders, grant income rose $469k → $1.4M.
11 of 56 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 29% of grant dollars received. That money is really individual donors directing a sponsor; the institutions to cultivate are the non-DAF funders.
Left out of every figure on this page: $220k from one payer (the payer shares this organization's board, largest Mlm Foundation). These are real filings, and they are not money METROPOLITAN LUTHERAN MINISTRY raised.
From the IRS filings of METROPOLITAN LUTHERAN MINISTRY’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 56 funders by total. Association, not causation. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
How concentrated its funding is
METROPOLITAN LUTHERAN MINISTRY has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 30% of grant income, and it takes 3 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 3 funders to its left
87% of the income these shares are computed over arrives through pass-through sponsors or from payers whose filings do not say what kind of payment it is. Concentration is still measured over all of it, because the money is real; what it does not support is a claim about how many institutions have chosen to fund METROPOLITAN LUTHERAN MINISTRY.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 29% · 2018 28% · 2019 70% · 2020 49% · 2021 33% · 2022 50% · 2023 53% — growing more concentrated.
“Effective funders” = inverse Herfindahl index (1 / Σ shareᵢ²) — the number of equal-sized funders that would give the same concentration. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
How long its funders stay
48% of METROPOLITAN LUTHERAN MINISTRY's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 55% give in more than one year at all.
Share of funders still giving k years after their first recorded grant, pooled across every acquisition cohort. A funder counts as retained in a year only if it made a grant that year. Measured to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving — a funder cannot be counted as lapsed in a year most filers have not reached.
Where its funders are
METROPOLITAN LUTHERAN MINISTRY draws 58% of its grant income from funders outside Missouri, across 13 states in all.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $3.2M arriving through sponsors registered in 9 states is excluded from the map and the split above: a sponsor holds money on a donor’s behalf, so its registered address would place those dollars somewhere no donor need ever have been. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
Organizations like METROPOLITAN LUTHERAN MINISTRY
Organizations whose mission and program text most resemble this one, by semantic similarity over every organization in the US filings — the closest peers, and often the clearest route to shared or prospective funders.
In Missouri
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
91% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
99%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Part of a family of 2 related entities
- Mlm Foundation · exempt
- Mlm Eileen's Place LLC · corp_trust
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for METROPOLITAN LUTHERAN MINISTRY: IRS status (Business Master File, Publication 78, auto-revocation), the OFAC sanctions lists, the Internal Revenue Bulletin, and California registration, with the Rev. Proc. 2018-32 §8.01 reliance elements stated element by element. Generated from the current files at the moment you download it.
Screens are triage, not determinations; a source that cannot be read reports not screened, never clear. Screen this nonprofit · How the screen works · on the API as GET /api/screening/{ein}?format=pdf
Questions and answers
- Who funds METROPOLITAN LUTHERAN MINISTRY?
- METROPOLITAN LUTHERAN MINISTRY (Missouri) receives grants from 56 organizations whose IRS filings report $11,172,136 to it, the largest being PARTNERS PEOPLE IN PROGRESS INC ($3,394,150). 31 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does METROPOLITAN LUTHERAN MINISTRY have?
- IRS filings report 56 organizations giving $11,172,136 in grants to METROPOLITAN LUTHERAN MINISTRY, 31 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of METROPOLITAN LUTHERAN MINISTRY?
- PARTNERS PEOPLE IN PROGRESS INC is the largest funder on record, with $3,394,150 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like METROPOLITAN LUTHERAN MINISTRY find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Missouri. The funding by cause and by state pages list the largest funders for a given area and how to approach them.
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2024 (financials across 2017–2024), and the filings of 56 funders that report grants to it. “On record” means captured in the filings we have parsed — a funder that does not e-file, or whose grant detail is not itemized, will not appear. Filings run roughly 12–24 months behind. Trends on this page end at FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving; later years are shown and marked, and move no figure. Data on this page was exported October 22, 2026. What this page cannot tell you · view filing